State v. Reed

Appeal
from the Circuit Court of St. Louis County Honorable Tom W.
DePriest, Jr. Judge.

KURT
S. ODENWALD, JUDGE.

Introduction

Appellant
Cameron Reed ("Reed") appeals the judgment of the
trial court entered after a jury trial. The jury convicted
him of voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action for
shooting Victim to death. Reed confessed to shooting Victim
during an interrogation, and video of that confession was
shown to the jury. On appeal, Reed argues that the trial
court erred in admitting the confession video because his
statements were involuntary under the totality of the
circumstances. Reed also asserts trial-court error in the
denial of his motion to quash the jury panel because the
selection of the panel violated his constitutional rights and
Missouri law.

We are
not left with a definite and firm impression that the
totality of the circumstances surrounding Reed's
confession deprived him of his free will and forced him to
confess. Thus, the trial court did not clearly err in denying
Reed's motion to suppress. Further, because Reed failed
to present any evidence that his jury panel was the result of
processes that violated either his constitutional rights or
Missouri law, the trial court did not err in denying his
motion to quash the jury panel. Accordingly, the judgment of
the trial court is affirmed.

Factual
and Procedural History

Reed
appeals his conviction, following a jury trial, on one count
of voluntary manslaughter and one count of armed criminal
action. Reed does not challenge the sufficiency of the
evidence supporting his conviction, so we will not detail the
facts of the underlying crime.

At
approximately 1:30 A.M. on June 30, 2013, Reed's neighbor
found the dead body of Victim lying in the street near
Reed's home and called police. During the investigation
that morning, Reed, who was friends with Victim, agreed to
make a statement at the police station. Reed was not a
suspect at that time.

Reed
was driven by police to the station at 6:00 A.M. When Reed
entered an interview room, an unidentified supervising
officer gave him a cigarette and some water. The officer
instructed Reed to wait for the detectives to arrive and to
knock loudly on the door if he needed more water or to use
the restroom. At 6:58 A.M., Reed knocked on the door,
requested water, and mentioned that his legs hurt so he
needed to go home to get his pain medication. The officer
brought more water and asked Reed to wait patiently because
the detectives would be in shortly. The officer also lit a
cigarette for Reed and turned up the heat because Reed was
cold.

At 8:29
A.M., about 2.5 hours after Reed entered the interview room,
Detective Rodesiler ("Det. Rodesiler") arrived and
started the interview. Det. Rodesiler informed Reed of his
Miranda[1] rights, although he was not a suspect at
the time. Reed signed a Miranda waiver form. Reed
told Det. Rodesiler that Victim had used heroin early that
morning before the shooting and had been yelling at a woman
who lived with Reed. To calm Victim, Reed walked him outside.
While outside, Reed stated that Victim had an aggressive
encounter with a man in a black truck. Later in the
interview, Reed identified the man in the black truck from a
photo array. The interview ended at 9:39 A.M., but Reed
stayed in the interview room when Det. Rodesiler left.
Officers allowed Reed to use the restroom at 11;02 A.M. About
5.5 hours after arriving at the station, at 11:37 A.M., Reed
left.

Police
investigated the man in the black truck, but soon eliminated
him as a suspect. Now without a suspect, Det. Rodesiler
called Reed the following day, July 1, and asked for another
interview. Reed agreed, rode with police to the station, and
entered the interview room at 11:36 A.M. The supervising
officer provided Reed with coffee and cigarettes while he
waited, and allowed him to text his mother. The
interview-room video showed that Reed spent much of his wait
sleeping in various positions. Around 1:00 P.M., Reed was
allowed to use the restroom and was given pretzels to eat.
Throughout the wait, Reed and the officer developed a cordial
relationship, with the officer accommodating Reed's
requests and Reed thanking the officer for doing so.

At 1:40
P.M., about two hours into Reed's wait, he knocked on the
door and complained about his purported disc bulge and the
rheumatoid arthritis in his legs, which Reed had told the
officer about earlier that day. The officer responded,
"Anything else I can do to make you more comfortable? I
mean, we got the cushion seat there, can I what else-what
else can make you more comfortable?" Reed replied,
"Nothing for real, I need like my muscle relaxers and
stuff. Like, I take real strong medicine." Reed
immediately stated that some days he did not take the
medication because he did not like being "doped up"
in front of his kids. Reed continued, "So I really
don't want to take the stuff today, I'm supposed to
have the kids in a little bit." The officer apologized,
asked if Reed wanted to lay down, and offered Reed more
coffee and cigarettes. Reed kept waiting.

During
a thirteen-minute stretch around 2:00 P.M., Reed knocked on
the door six different times. When an officer answered the
door on the sixth set of blocks, Reed stated that he had to
use the bathroom badly. An officer immediately took Reed to
the restroom and, upon return to the interview room, gave
Reed more cigarettes.

The
detectives arrived at 3:10 P.M.-roughly 3.5 hours after Reed
had entered the interview room-to conduct the interview. Det.
Rodesiler, who apologized for the wait, was joined by
Detective Wilson ("Det. Wilson"). Reed listened to
and waived his Miranda rights at the beginning of
the interview. After Reed told the detectives his original
story, the detectives informed Reed that the evidence pointed
to him as the shooter, but they did not know his motive. Reed
initially denied that he had shot Victim because Victim was
his friend. When the detectives started pressing Reed about
the shooting, Reed asked for a cigarette several times. The
detectives denied him a cigarette; Det. Wilson explained,
"I don't like smoke in here, I'm sorry, you can
have one when we're done."

Later
in the questioning, Reed stated, "I'm hurting,
I'm in pain, I don't have my pain medicine, I have
business to attend to today for my kids to do a drug drop,
and to go meet with the CPS later so she can see my kids and
do a home visit." Det. Wilson replied, "I'm
telling you that is not going to happen today, okay?"
Without reference to the medicine, Reed reiterated his
position that he did not shoot Victim, and the interrogation
continued.

Finally,
the detectives told Reed that they were booking him for
murder, regardless of what his story was, because of the
strength of the rest of the evidence. Fearing he would
"go to jail forever, " Reed agreed to tell his
story. Reed commented that he was "not going to go to
jail for no [expletive] First Degree Murder, man." After
the detectives gave Reed a cigarette, he confessed to
shooting Victim, but he claimed that he was acting in
self-defense and to protect others in his household. Reed was
subsequently charged with second-degree murder and armed
criminal action.

Before
trial, Reed filed a motion to suppress his confession because
his statements were not voluntary. Det. Rodesiler testified
for the State in the subsequent hearing. The detective
believed that Reed had understood and voluntarily waived his
Miranda rights. The detective testified that he
never threatened or made promises to Reed to secure his
confession, and that Reed did not appear to be afraid of the
detectives. Regarding the refusal to give Reed a cigarette,
Det. Rodesiler interpreted Reed's requests to be a
"delay tactic." Det. Rodesiler also testified that
officers were not allowed to give Reed his medicine because
only a nurse could do so. The trial court overruled
Reed's motion to suppress.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Reed
also moved to quash the jury panel because the racial makeup
of his panel consisted of zero African-American males.
Reed&#39;s counsel asserted that 23.7% of St. Louis
County&#39;s population was African-American, according to
the census bureau. The trial court found that the jury panel
contained 54 prospective jurors, ten of which were
African-American-all ten were female-which the trial court
found was a ratio of "about 18
percent"[2] African-Americans on the jury panel. The
trial court also stated that it was the court's belief
that prospective jurors were randomly ...

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